Michael Jackson and Hip-Hop

Guess which one of those things didn't die this year

In 2009, Thriller's mix of paranoia and precocious, childlike dread felt like an oracle, unearthed for tough times, and not just to Americans. I was in Ghana when MJ passed—I recall sidewalks in Accra filled with spectators eyeing his funeral on scrambled 15-inch TVs. It is for a reason that I have to give 2009 to a 1982 production: Michael Jackson's death was the musical event of the universe this year, but, in some way, it was just the trigger for his back catalog's resurgence. I wonder how many copies of Thriller sold this year—maybe more than Lady Gaga.

Drew HinshawAtlanta, GA

But if Michael Jackson was a mature artist at the onset of his solo career—like Peter Pan, with whom he famously identified—he was determined to never grow up. At the cusp of the 1980s, despite his years of showbiz success, Jackson seemed as naïve as he was famous. He seemed to consciously adopt the aura of an alien—an asexual and untouchable creature not unlike E.T. It says something about our collective mental health, the world's mental health, that we could embrace such a synthetically sweet being, that we could find ourselves loving this alien. The Michael Jackson of Thriller and "We Are the World" was a fantasy being divorced from messy carnality, suspended in a chilly, self-constructed image cocoon. In the decade of the AIDS plague, Jacko provided the safest sex of all: a vague, prepubescent tingle of mysterious longing. He was the Jonas Brothers without the promise rings, or maybe, more to the point, a kind of Edward Scissorhands figure—an unembraceable, artificial man possessed of the will.

Jonathan Mannion

Gucci Mane, releasing another mixtape even as you read this

Philip MartinLittle Rock, AR

The short version: Highly personal art that emerges from a damaged psyche isn't inherently of value. Sometimes it's just shrill and overwrought, and, as much as I've always loved a few Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 songs, the great Thriller moment was hardly a watershed event in my own life (the alleged "death of monoculture" and such). With that as the backdrop, "This Is It" is everything I never would have guessed it would (or even could) be: modest, old-fashioned, humane, an almost willful non-event. I've no interest in seeing the film; for me, this closes a long and often tiresome story honorably.

Phil DellioToronto, ON, Canada

I'll be pleasantly surprised if anybody ever records another iconic album again. But then, it's also kind of bizarre that anybody was ever able to do that to begin with: to broadcast some core emotion to millions of people. Weird. If someone else is able to pull it off, that's a total bonus.

Jesse JarnowBrooklyn, NY

2009 will go down as the year in which hip-hop couldn't get any deeper than coke rap.

Trent FitzgeraldCamden, NJ

More dubious signs: Kanye West went from critiquing the diamond trade to critiquing Taylor Swift, while Common went from endorsing Obama to endorsing skullfucking strippers on a Lady Gaga remix.

Eric ArnoldOakland, CA

While new kids like Asher Roth were Tweeting themselves in the foot (and vets like Raekwon were incessantly promoting new projects by repeatedly all-caps imploring "GO COP THE ALBUM, SON!!!"), Doom carried on being a brilliantly strange, reclusive man with the dress sense of your granddad who enjoys reading books in the park, referencing old print zine Life Sucks Die, and cultivating his very impressive beer-belly. If only old man Jay-Z could age so gracefully.

Phillip MlynarBrooklyn, NY

All rap dance crazes have ostensibly been for girls, but not until L.A.'s jerkin' movement did a rap dance craze ever feel so creatively powered by women. The male duo New Boyz were the scene's true breakout stars, but it was groups like the Bangz and the teenage five-piece Pink Dollaz—who are like kids who've been raised in a cult where children are only allowed to listen to Lil Kim—that made the most invigorating singles. Even the scene's best song, Cold Flamez's "Miss Me Kiss Me Lick Me," finds the male trio cooing, "Girl, you nasty," and ending the song in a resigned state: "Thanks for the sex. It was great, I admit it."

Jordan SargentColumbia, MO

Besides Kanye being right—Beyoncé did have the best video—he more quietly outshined Taylor Swift with his verse on Keri Hilson's "Knock You Down," which one-upped Swift's "You Belong With Me" and its high school love histrionics. In Kanye's version, high school binaries are broken down—the class clown gets the prom queen—and then it turns sour anyway. Another awkward, awesome bummer from Mr. West.

Brandon SoderbergForest Hill, MD

2009 was the year of Gucci's World—we were just living in it. While Lil Wayne squandered the political capital and fan goodwill he earned from Tha Carter III's commercial juggernaut on the "rock" follies of Rebirth, Gucci Mane took his flood-the-(online)-streets-with-product playbook and ran with it. Will Pill have next, though? Having an incredibly lyrical and catchy trap-hop anthem that can vie for Song of the Year always helps, but locking down your own market before trying to smash the Internet would probably be a smart idea, too! Maybe Gucci should let Pill look at that playbook for a second to get his artist-development strategy straight before he Charles Hamilton's himself . . .